The Sandy aid vote: Northeast vs. South

1/4/13 1:53 PM EST

The divide between the Northeastern and Southern wings of the GOP just got a little wider.

While the House passed emergency legislation Friday to raise the borrowing authority for the national flood insurance program to pay tens of thousands of claims piling up after Hurricane Sandy hit the Northeast, the regional breakdown of the vote was hard to overlook: nearly half of the 67 Republicans who voted against the measure hailed from the South, including Florida and Texas.

The New York Times has a great graphic illustrating the geographic divide on the vote, which won’t soon be forgotten by Northeastern Republicans still fuming over the original cancelled vote on Hurricane Sandy aid.

A few of those Southern Republicans may end up regretting their no votes sometime in the not too distant future.

Most GOPers representing storm-vulnerable coastal districts recognized that one day they could be coming to Congress hat in hand so they cast votes in favor of the emergency measure -- among them freshman Tom Rice, the only Republican in South Carolina to cast a yes vote.

But a handful of freshman Republicans – Randy Weber of Texas, Ted Yoho and Ron DeSantis of Florida -- with coastal turf chose fiscal austerity over the district play.

So did two members of the Class of 2010: Steven Palazzo of Mississippi, whose district was pummeled by Hurricane Katrina, and Andy Harris of Maryland, who represents the only part of his state – the Eastern Shore – that’s Southern by political heritage.